In some ways we will miss John McDonnell. His reheated 1970s student union Trotskyism was always an easy target for a column. From free broadband, to nationalising great swathes of industry, to raising taxes to punitive levels, and banning just abut anything he disapproved of, he managed to come up with a constant stream of terrible ideas. But, hey, never mind. Now there is Anneliese Dodds.
The new shadow chancellor may be painted in some places as representing a shift back towards the moderate centre. And yet while she may have endeared herself to working parents on lockdown everywhere with her daughter’s impromptu appearance on Sky News this morning, we should also get real about her very limited abilities.
In truth, she is no Gordon Brown who, whatever his faults, was the economic architect of New Labour, overhauled its thinking from the bottom up, and came up with a set of credible policies that won three election victories.
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